Conspicuous consumption of music, live and otherwise, in Boston and beyond.

June 2007

June 27, 2007

Last night, I finally managed to catch Passing Strange, a new musical by singer-songwriter Stew, musical collaborator Heidi Rodewald and director Annie Dorsen, at the Public Theater. The show chronicles the coming-of-age of a young, middle-class African-American man from Los Angeles, as he pursues his muse and grapples with issues of racial identity, belonging and commitment.

I'll come back to talk about this show at length soon. But since the run closes this Sunday (July 1), it seems imperative to at least say this much: Passing Strange is tuneful, adventurous, provocative and touching, and a genuinely absorbing evening of theater. The book is wordy, funny and genuine; the music touches on rock, soul, gospel, cabaret, punk and more conventional modes of Rent- and Hedwig-era musical theater. The staging is minimal but inventive, and the cast is fabulous.

Stew, whose cabaret-rock work I've not always appreciated in the past, is nearly always at center stage, providing a solid, self-deprecating center of gravity around which events and characters swirl, and into which the audience is drawn for at least a few hours, as well.

Passing Strange isn't flawless, but it's still one of the most engaging and thought-provoking performance pieces I've seen in quite some time. There are seven remaining performances: one show tonight, tomorrow and Saturday, and two on Friday and Sunday. More details here.

June 21, 2007

It's that time of year when there's not so much going on: plenty of busy work to fill up office hours, but not so many assignments afterward. Combine that with ongoing wedding preparations, and the result is that I haven't had so many nocturnal ramblings to share just lately, newspaper links aside.

But the good news is that the Doctor and I sat down with our calendars last night and filled them with hours of potential adventure -- there are some fine things happening hereabouts this summer. So with luck, there will be plenty to report before too long.

I've also got a glowing review of Iris, Messenger, a brilliant new fantasy novel for pre-teens by Sarah Deming, in the July issue of Time Out New York Kids, on news stands now. Apparently, it's not available online just yet. I've met Sarah once, briefly, and I think it's safe to predict she'll be thrilled to see she's sharing a page with Neil Gaiman.(Barnes & Noble)

Playlist:

godspeed you! black emperor - Yanqui U.X.O. (Constellation)

maudlin of the Well - My Fruit Psychobells… A Seed Combustible (Dark Symphonies)

June 19, 2007

New York magazine editor-in-chief Adam Moss announced today that Justin Davidson will be the magazine’s new classical music and architecture critic. Davidson will join New York magazine’s staff and begin writing reviews and features on both subjects in September 2007.

Davidson comes to New York magazine from Newsday, where he has worked as classical music critic since 1996. In 2002, he won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism; the same year he added the architecture beat to his portfolio as Newsday’s first architecture critic. He has written about both music and architecture for The New Yorker, and has also contributed to the Los Angeles Times, Slate, Salon, and Opera News. He is a regular columnist for the Website E-music and a periodic guest on the WNYC music talk show Soundcheck.

“Justin Davidson is a unique talent in his fluency in both classical music and architecture—topics of great importance to this city and this magazine,” said Adam Moss. “We look forward to increasing our coverage of both subjects and are excited to have such an accomplished writer and thinker join our team.”

Davidson, 41, a native of Rome, worked as a stringer at the Rome bureau of the Associated Press before coming to the U.S. to attend Harvard as a music major. He went on to receive a doctoral degree in music composition from Columbia University, where he also was instructor and later adjunct professor of music. His compositions were performed in the U.S., Italy, China, and Eastern Europe, and won him numerous grants and awards. He worked as editorial director of Sony Classical before joining Newsday.

Davidson succeeds Peter G. Davis, who left New York magazine earlier this month, on the classical music beat. He is the magazine’s first staff architecture critic since 2004.

# # #

[Press release reprinted verbatim. Congratulations to Justin, a gifted journalist and critic, and a much-admired colleague.]

June 14, 2007

Don't
get us wrong, no one loves Joe's Pub more than we do. But we can think
of a few ways that swanky lounge might have been refurbished to suit
last night's record-release date by Boston roots-rockers Sarah Borges
and the Broken Singles. All those tables? Outta there. Toss some
sawdust on the floor. Instead of pricey cosmopolitans, $5 pitchers. A
pool table and a smoky haze in the air would have finished the picture
nicely.

We told you about Borges—pronounced BOR-jes, not BOR-haze—last week in a five-star review of her new album, Diamonds in the Dark.
She's a Massachusetts native currently based in Boston, and her music
struck us as a whip-smart mixture of old-school torch and twang (Wanda
Jackson, Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam) and punk-rock attitude (old
Elvis Costello, X, Lone Justice). "The Day We Met," the disc's lead-off
single, has an unbeatable power-pop bounce, while "Stop and Think It
Over," penned by garage-rock maven Greg Cartwright, is a throwback to
the soulful girl-group sound. (Small wonder that former Shangri-La Mary
Weiss also covered the latter song on her recent comeback album.)

Despite a massive cult in Boston and a healthy following on the
roots-rock tour circuit, Borges has yet to break here in New York. Last
night's show proved that it's just a matter of time.
Decked out in a black-and-silver striped mini dress and white cowboy
boots, and armed with a duct-taped Telecaster, Borges revealed a
winning stage presence and showed off a voice even stronger and more
flexible than her record had suggested.

The band kicked off its set with four tunes from its first disc, Silver City
(issued in 2005 on Texas indie Blue Corn), then followed with a trio
from the new one: "Lord Only Knows," "Belle of the Bar" and "Lonely
Town of Love"—the last delivered by Borges in a bluesy drawl worthy of
Mick Jagger. Bassist Binky announced "Daniel Lee," the single from the
first album, as "a really big hit in our bedrooms." The set included
just about everything from both discs, including a pair of requests
Borges was clearly pleased to honor.

Guitarist Mike Castellana—a Long Islander, it turned out—served up
twangy riffs and heartsick pedal-steel arias. Rob Dulaney demonstrated
that ultimate sign of a drummer not prone to grandstanding: mouthing
the lyrics to many of the songs. And then there was Binky: bassist,
backing vocalist, raconteur and all-around foil to the leader. His
ability to play a one-note throb with one finger of his left hand while
operating a long-neck with his right must surely be the envy of
bassists everywhere; later, he used the half-empty bottle as a slide.
His chemistry with Borges—including (but not limited to) rock-star
stage choregraphy—put this gig over the top, even in front of one of
those quiet, show-me NYC crowds.

It probably helped the band to have Josh, a young kid who knew the
words to all the songs—even the new ones—sitting on the front row all
night. (He was rewarded with a copy of the new CD.) And eventually, a
handsome couple at the next table got up and danced through "The Day We
Met" and a few other songs. It took every ounce of our composure not to
join them.

You'll have another chance to catch Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles on July 28, when the band opens for Kelly Willis at the Bowery Ballroom. Until then, head to her MySpace page to hear the band for yourself, check out this video for a taste of the live show, and tune into WFUV on June 20 for a live set the band taped while it was in town for last night's show.

June 08, 2007

Further to my threepriorposts that made reference to the still-unfolding story of Pierre Ruhe's employment status at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, that paper's managing editor Hank Klibanoff posted the following note in the comments field of my June 6 post. I believe it deserves greater visibility than that, and reprint it here verbatim (apart from replacing a lengthy URL with a simple link and italicizing publication names for clarity) and without additional comment.

I never want to turn away praise extended to the newspaper where I am a managing editor. So while I thank you for recognizing the wisdom of continuing Pierre Ruhe as an arts critic at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I do want to quibble with the assertion that it’s an about-face.

Allow me to clarify some points, debunk some wild myths and introduce the truth into the dialogue about the AJC’s plan for arts criticism and coverage.

Like you, I am very happy that Pierre will continue to bring our readers superb criticism and coverage. Same with Cathy Fox and Wendell Brock. They’ve done brilliant jobs for us, and are a pleasure to work with.

The AJC has been going through a bold, exciting and, at times, challenging structural reorganization. To meet the needs of a digital audience that is growing and a print audience that loves a sophisticated and lively newspaper, the entire departmental structure, the flow of news and many job responsibilities are changing.

Because we are creating some new jobs, closing old ones, merging some and modifying others, we decided to go with the most fair and democratic job placement process we could find, one that allowed everyone to apply for jobs.

As we went through that process, Pierre and our others probably weren’t too excited about it, and I don’t blame them. But they were professional about it, understanding that this was about something bigger than any group of reporters. I also imagine that if they had had their eye on another job in the newsroom and were blocked from applying for it, they might have felt the deck was stacked against them.

So it was a difficult few weeks. We were prepared for that.

But we were not prepared for the way myth and misconception took root in some sectors of the media, especially the blogosphere, as irresponsible arts advocates and bloggers sent their misguided missiles through cyberspace without any regard to where they were aimed, whether an attack was justified or who got hurt. Truth and reality became twisted beyond recognition.

Some said we had eliminated the critic positions; they were wrong. We never did such a thing, and you’ll not find any evidence to contradict that. Some said we removed the people holding the critic positions; they were wrong. We never did such a thing. One email from the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta went so far as to say we planned “elimination of arts coverage.”

Those who participated in spreading these falsehoods have hurt us, have hurt the credibility of the arts blogosphere, and have hurt themselves – because there was not a word of truth to it. And any misinterpretation of the truth could have easily been corrected with a simple conversation.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution remains committed to vigorous and comprehensive coverage and criticism of the arts. Even as we, like most newspapers, have reduced and reorganized our staff, the AJC has maintained the level of its staffing for the arts – as it promised it would from the outset.

Pierre and Cathy will continue in the two arts critic/reporter positions in the enterprise department. Wendell remains as theater critic/reporter. Mark Davis and Kirsten Tagami become cultural affairs news reporters, Sonia Murray becomes the music scene reporter, Rodney Ho becomes the local TV and radio reporter, Bob Longino becomes the local movies reporter. Also, David Graves has been named to another new position, leisure reporter, covering weekend events of all kinds. Most of these staffers are remaining in the positions they already held, or in positions that have been modestly modified from what they held.

From the beginning of the reorganization, as the AJC drafted and wrote job descriptions for its staff members who cover the arts, the AJC built into three job descriptions a requirement that the staff members holding those positions provide arts criticism; the three critic/reporters who held those positions before the reorganization (Ruhe, Fox and Brock) are the same three who will hold those critic/reporter positions after the reorganization.

The requirement, in the job description, that these staffers provide criticism was memorialized in writing the entire time that bloggers, reporters, the Woodruff Arts Center and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra erroneously claimed the jobs and criticism were being eliminated.

This means that anyone who wrote or said we were eliminating criticism or critics was flat out wrong. Remarkably, those who were most vocal and heated in decrying our alleged elimination of critical writing abandoned all critical thinking when it came to assessing whether the rumors about us were true. And, oh, how easy it would have been to avoid that; all any of them had to do was call and ask us. We’d have told them.

Here’s what one Atlanta writer said today when the Boston Globe asked why he didn’t try to call the managing editor who knew more about the situation than anyone before writing the falsehood that the arts critics jobs were being eliminated: “If it turns out to be wrong, I would rather not have gotten it wrong and that would have entailed making a few more phone calls. You have to understand, there were a lot of positions changing. And in most cases, when I did make phone calls to staffers, they were not returned. Especially to people I didn’t know. I don’t know Pierre Ruhe.” (LINK)

Keep reading that Globe story and you will see that the vice president for marketing at the Woodruff Arts Center, also apologized to us for spreading falsehoods about the AJC’s actions.

So, while I appreciate the praise we’re getting for coming to our senses and “reinstating” Pierre, or reversing course and “retaining” him, or for responding to public uproar, I must say that none of those are true.

Pierre, I am happy to say, will continue as an arts critic/reporter, but that represents no change of course.

I love the passion of the arts communities, and I, along with the other leaders of the AJC newsroom, appreciate and share their deep concern about arts coverage and criticism. Because of that passion, arts communities remind me of the newsrooms I have chosen to spend my professional life in. We at the AJC state emphatically that we believe that the arts play a vital and positive societal role. We will continue to do our best to reflect that in our coverage in print and online.

June 07, 2007

Geoff Edgers of the Boston Globe, on his blog Exhibitionist, adds another perspective to the ongoing discussion of Atlanta Journal-Constitution classical critic Pierre Ruhe's employment status: that of Hank Klibanoff, AJC managing editor for enterprise, who says that Ruhe's job was never in jeopardy in the first place. Klibanoff has some pointed words for bloggers who repeated information from published accounts that now appear to have been hasty, if not entirely erroneous. (Obviously I have to consider myself among that number, even if I wasn't among the big fish cited.)

On the opposite coast, Orange County Register critic and Classical Life blogger Timothy Mangan offers some common-sense tips on how readers can help support the cause of at least some local classical critics.

Clarke Bustard, the long-serving classical music critic of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, has been blogging about the arts in Virginia for a few months now at The Letter V.

Some recordings of interest that I've covered in recent issues of Time Out New York -- one short but gorgeous disc of post-rock minimalist chamber music, and two hot roots-rock CDs by singers new to me: